Chief Holland had made solving the crime the department's top priority, and Schultz discovered that just about anything he thought he'd require would be granted to him if it made Holland look good. He had seen Faldourette and even spoken to him civilly half a dozen times in the past, but never needed to get to know the guy. Now they were unofficial partners, which was likely to piss Angelwiet off royally. "It wouldn't have to be Bucky. It could be Croom or anyone else with access to the kitchen and room keys."
"True. I'm going to start with Mr. Burnwold, though. It's a small town. It isn't likely that a tourist came in here and kidnapped some kid and worked hard to leave us a presentation. I'm thinking the killer is local and connected to the hotel if not the kids themselves."
"Reasonable," agreed Faldourette. "With tourist season slow right now, I'd think any extra bodies floating around the hotel would probably attract enough attention to be memorable."
"Right. Someone would have seen an extra teen or non-guest loitering inside the building. Bucky saw Justin, or claims he did that day. We won't know more until the girl talks."
"What did the hospital say when you called them?"
Schultz scratched at his prickly shadow of a beard. "No update on her status. Still unresponsive as far as the floor nurse knew."
"What does that mean? She wouldn't touch the breakfast they left her?"
"It was vague," Schultz grinned crookedly. As they came up a side street with a pretty good view of the hotel from the northeast side, Crandall stopped the unmarked vehicle and glanced around to make sure he wasn't blocking any oncoming traffic. The building was five stories tall, with double height windows on the first floor to allow extra sunlight within the high-ceilinged dining hall. All of the windows on the upper floors were narrow and framed by metal shutters painted charcoal blue to contrast with the otherwise smoky gold exterior. The trim was a deep rust brown, and the facade otherwise pretty plain unlike some of the more recently renovated older buildings which had been made into western- and mining-themed casinos. Nothing jutted above roof level to indicate any further structures up there. The hotel abutted two smaller buildings, with much of the old-time architecture sharing dividing walls as original storefronts and boarding houses had been crammed together toward the end of the area's main rush during the early 1900s. Back then, the town had actually been much larger, made up of crude log cabins and hastily thrown together claptrap entertainment halls, saloons, and dry goods shops where abruptly wealthy men could quickly squander their small fortunes or lose claim stakes at games of chance. "Is it one of the older buildings?" the detective wondered aloud.
"The Glitter O' Her Eye can be seen in two of the earlier photographs of the area. The outside looks pretty much the same as it did back then."
"I mean, were the buildings beside it built along with it, or afterward?"
"Good question," said Faldourette. "You're wondering if the place was bigger? The architecture doesn't match up exactly with the buildings alongside it. I'd guess they're more modern."
The pair sat quietly as a city truck approached slowly from behind them, then moved around them so the driver could see if the way was clear and drive past. "Is it that room?"
The uniformed cop squinted, his lower lip moving slightly as he calculated in his head. "I think it's in the rear corner."
"Alley view."
"See how the windows aren't aligned? That was actually a later design, so I'll guess she was built right around 1900 and isn't one of the better original structures."
"That's how they didn't realize they had an extra room. It wouldn't be so noticeable from the narrow alley behind it." Faldourette nodded slightly, his mind elsewhere, working on other angles of the case. Schultz moved the car forward and turned left, heading toward the end of the block where he could pull in between the buildings. "You recognize the building from photographs? Recent research?"
"I was online last night trying to get some history of the place as well as track down any other cases where the victims have been turned inside out."
"And?"
"I couldn't find any news stories regarding inside-out corpses, but I did stumble across somebody's disturbing blog where they're apparently writing a fiction piece about a murder victim."
He took note of Schultz' quiet and added, "It was about some sadist who killed little girls by cutting off their external genitalia, then reattached them inside out with sinew and upholstery needles."
"Bled to death, I suppose."
"Fiction," muttered the police officer, shrugging.
Schultz eased the sedan through the narrow alley toward the rear of the hotel, then snickered suddenly. "Sorry. What kind of sick fuck writes stuff like that? Is it considered entertaining?"
"Shock value, I'm guessing. You don't have to write well if you can come up with some original ideas."
"Not a local writer by chance?"
"Honestly," admitted Faldourette, "I didn't bother checking."
They parked just past the service entrance, alongside a beat up grey pickup truck and a peeling blue motor scooter. Schultz opened the door and lingered in the escaping air conditioning, gazing up at where he thought the newly re-opened room should be. "I never noticed they don't have fire escapes on some of these older jobs."
"Let Code Enforcement go after 'em. Or the Fire Inspector."
"How would someone get in that room without being noticed?"
"Maybe they were," replied Faldourette, gesturing left as Bucky Burnwold exited through a back door to slump down to the concrete and light a cigarette.
The two approached the kid who quickly snuffed out the smoke like it had been a joint. "What's up?" he mumbled, wiping his fists across his forehead.
"Breakfast crowd gone for the day?" asked Schultz.
Shrugging, the kid replied, "Light crowd. I think word's getting around...or a rumor about it anyway. Al let us set up buffet-style so we wouldn't have to think too much about special orders and stuff."
"I'm sure everyone's pretty preoccupied."
"Your daughter's Elliesha Schultz?"
The detective squinted slightly, but nodded. "What about her?"
"Nothin'. I just know her, s'all. Seen her around."
"Seen her and asked someone who she was? What her name is?"
He nodded uncomfortably, running his left hand through stringy black hair. "She's...y'know...cute."
Bucky suddenly seemed less of a suspect to Schultz. How likely was it that he was hinting he'd like to ask the girl out when he already knew who her father was? "I know she is," he said stiffly.
"Is your wife hiring by any chance?"
That surprised him. "My ex? Why? You're thinking of leaving?"
"Hell yeah I'm thinking of leaving. This place is full of ghost stories and I'm not looking to start telling 'em myself from firsthand."
Faldourette piped up, "You believe in stuff like that?"
"I dunno. Probably not. Everybody knows somebody who thinks they saw a ghost or has a story about a door slamming shut when there was no wind or anything or felt a cold breeze for no reason late at night."
The cop persisted, "This place has stories like that?"
Bucky gazed between the two men like they'd just crawled out from under rocks and seen sunshine for the first time ever. "I thought everybody knew this place is haunted. Has been for years. People on the upper floors waking up to sounds of piano playing and laughing like there's a party going on below them. People hearing footsteps in the stairwells and watching the doors ease open slightly as if someone's peeking out. Sometimes, late at night, you can smell all this good cooking wafting through the place when the kitchen's been closed for hours. Then there was that Bethany girl who quit last year when she thought she saw a man standing behind her in the big mirror behind the bar in the dining room and there was no one there...room twenty-two always smells like either fresh cut roses or some woman's perfume nobody recognizes for no reason at all and if you hang a framed picture on the west wall it'll always fall off on the floor and break."
"I've heard so many stories," the cop admitted, "that I've forgotten which ones go with which buildings anymore."
Schultz asked, "Bethany who?"
"Oh, I didn't know her. I think I was on vacation when she was here. Quit like a day later. Freaked out over nothing. Skittish, I guess. Man is she in the wrong town."
"You saw Jasmine and Justin that morning?"
"Uh...yeah. I saw Jasmine grabbing breakfast with the other girls first thing when they hold their little morning meetings in the kitchen. She seemed...distracted, I guess. Not excited or anything, but you could tell there was something kind of bothering her."
"You were watching her?"
Bucky turned away to hide the colored heat that bloomed across his face. "I eavesdrop on 'em in the mornings when I'm not busy."
"Did you hear her say anything about having a visitor drop by to see her later?"
"Nah, but she was texting like crazy behind the walk-in freezer door when she thought nobody was looking."
"Catch any of it?"
"Nah."
"What about her appearance? Was she dressed a little...racier than she normally did? More makeup? Different hairstyle or anything?"
"She had this little necklace for a while with a tiny, heart-shaped gold nugget on a chain, but I don't think she had it on that day."
The back door creaked open wide and a large dark-skinned fellow in a stained shirt bellowed, "We got more bacon?" He didn't know how to take the appearance of strangers behind the building talking to his help.
"We got plenty of turkey bacon on the steam table, unless someone wants the real thing?"
"Al wants it for a BLT."
"Tell Al he had heart surgery last year and he's not supposed to touch the stuff."
The black man snorted. "I can't tell Al a danged thing. Let him kill hisself slowly, see if I give a dang."
Bucky sighed loudly. "Do I need to show you?"
"You too busy?"
The kid said, "These are the police, duh? See the one with the shiny badge on his shirt?"
The other guy made some mumbled comment about pigs and bacon as he turned around and let the door slam shut behind him. When Bucky failed to follow him back into the kitchen, Faldourette withdrew a small notepad, but Schultz's cellphone chimed softly and he stepped away from the pair for a little bit of privacy. "Yes?"
It was Vodoureaux, returning his call. "I got your message. No, the kid was never frozen. There would have been cellular damage and discoloration."
Schultz worked his mouth from side to side. "DNA yet?"
"It's Justin Brunshweiger. Every bit of it."
"How the hell...?"
Denny asked him, "Did they ever find his clothes?"
"His clothes? They're missing?"
"He wasn't brought in with any personal affects whatsoever. Kid his age had to have a wallet or at least a buck or two. A pocket to keep it in. Shoes."
"Clothes?" Schultz asked himself. No one had said anything to him about the kid's clothes. He turned toward Burnwold and called, "What was Justin wearing when you saw him that day?"
"What was he wearing? Uh...tan cargo pants or something. Baggy, tan. A white T-shirt?"
He told Vodoureaux, "Kid was dressed when he got here...," then tried Burnwold again. "Was Jasmine dressed when they took her away?"
"I dunno. I guess so. Yeah--she had jeans on and canvas sneakers like from the dollar store. She was wrapped in a blanket. I dunno what she was wearing. I thought she had a yellow blouse or something on that morning."
Justin was naked, Jasmine was not. No sign of any sexual contact according to the hospital. Someone had to've grabbed his clothes. "I'll work on that," he told the coroner, and hung up.
"No clothes?" Faldourette asked as he approached them.
Schultz shrugged. "How big is the walk-in 'fridge?"
"Wanna see it?"
The difference in lighting was startling. The floor was small beige tiles polished with slick, grey-streaked grease. The walls were high and painted white beneath a sheen of humidity. Stainless steel commercial appliances were crammed everywhere within the tight space. The walk-in unit was centered against a wall to their left between a large dishwashing center and a row of steam tables with heat lamps. It looked small. Roughly the size of a standard jail cell. "Freezer and 'fridge in one?"
Bucky nodded. "You think someone was hiding in it?"
"Where do you get your deliveries from?"
"Everybody comes Monday. Bread guy in the morning with dinner rolls and hamburger buns. Produce guy after that, meat guy in the afternoons."
"Meat guy," repeated Faldourette.
"Sure. They don't send us out to get nothin'."
"Who signs it in? Checks it out?" asked Schultz, already doubtful about this line of questioning.
"Whoever. Al pays for everything later. We leave the receipts for him in his mailbox," he said, gesturing toward a smoked plastic bin attached to the wall with screws. "Y'know, Johnny and me only work five days at a go. There's girls who come in early in the week to handle the lunch-"
"Who worked that day?"
"Me and Johnny were here when it happened."
"Who'd been here the night before?"
"Uh...that would be Johnny and me."
"You trust him?"
The kid glanced toward the bustling, lean black man and grinned. "Enough," he replied, shrugging.
"How long you worked here?"
"Just over a year now."
"Him?"
"Twelve years, I think." He hollered over to the other guy, but Johnny was through the swinging dining room doors laden with a cart full of plastic-wrap sealed metal canisters and bins.
"Never gave you no trouble?"
"Him? Nah. He's an ordained minister. Gives mass when his old man ain't feelin' too good."
"That right?" asked Faldourette airidly, reaching for the long metal handle of the refrigeration unit door. It didn't pull back the way he anticipated, and he looked surprised when it just bent loosely toward him and the door swung easily after it.
"Broken," explained Bucky. "Stays shut okay, but you gotta give it an extra shove to make the seal hold." A dim bare bulb cast weak yellowish light on stained and half-crushed boxes labeled for green beans and potatoes, overflowing with carrot tops and torn plastic liners. Metal bins poorly wrapped with clear plastic displayed large cuts of cooked meat swaddled in waxed paper and pre-sliced cheese. There were boxes of packaged dessert cakes on a flimsy aluminum shelf. Schultz lifted a plastic tumbler and found molded milkshake within it. "Oh, that was Jasmine's. She made smoothies in the mornings and then never finished them." Faldourette took the cup from him, tilted it as he watched the contents, sniffed it, then handed it to Bucky to dispose of. There was no room to hide a body unless it was propped upright, and not yet frozen in that position everything loose would have slid toward the feet and pooled.
"Freezer?" asked the uniform as the detective backed out of the close, stuffy-smelling cold closet.
He shook his head. "Denny said no."
The cop tugged the handle anyway and found there was no room to enter. Boxes and packages were stacked six and seven deep, everything within two feet of the door. Bucky exited with a package in hand and waved it at Johnny when the man re entered the kitchen. "Bacon?"
"Aw, he went upstairs with the old lady to check out that room."
"C'mon," said Schultz suddenly, gesturing for Faldourette to trail him.
"What?" He hadn't heard the exchange, but followed his superior dutifully.
Schultz tried a side exit that deposited him in a short foyer decorated with a horizontal mirror and an antique rocker. He paused to get his bearings, then shot left, past public restrooms. He saw the stairs to the right, behind the check-in counter, but moved past it for the elevator. It had stopped on the third floor.
Faldourette saw what he saw and said, "Someone just went up there?"
"Croom and his wife."
"They didn't take the stairs?"
"I don't know," the detective admitted, and darted for the check-in desk. A dark-haired beauty was on the phone. She smiled politely, but continued her conversation. "Your boss head this way?" She nodded and pointed at the elevator. "Yep," he sighed. He sprinted for the stairs.
"What's the hurry?"
"I'd like to ask 'em a few things with them both there."
"Why are we running?"
Honestly, Schultz didn't know. The moment he'd suspected the hotel's owners were headed for room 39, he'd simply known he must stop them or at least be there with them. It had been a sudden urge. A need. He retained cop instincts. He didn't question it. It pleased him when he discovered the younger man was out of breath before he was. He was turning to see how close the uniformed cop was when they both hesitated, distracted by a muffled howl. Schultz burst through the door and turned right. Through the open door to room 39 he could make out Albert Croom staggering as he fell back against the bed clutching his chest, and something large and wet and bloody-looking on the floor back by the half-circle table under the framed etching of the old mill.
* * *
Faldourette had turned back down the hallway and run from room to room, trying doors. There was no resistance when he hit the bathroom, and he glanced quickly within. The elevator remained on the third floor, so he grabbed his radio as he hit the door to the stairwell and raced down it.
As far as he knew, there should have been a cop on guard duty, but Schultz saw no sign of one as he stepped through the dreaded doorway into the room and bent over Croom. There was a lifeless mess of blood and offal very near them on the floor and no other sign of Croom's wife. Crandall whipped out his cellphone and speed dialed 911 as he bent over the quaking man still sliding bonelessly toward the floor, his back against the bed, drawing down the new bedspread his wife had purchased for the room. The man was going glassy-eyed and his breathing was shallow and erratic. The detective lightly slapped his jowls for a reaction, saw the pupils fluxuate, watched the eyes focus on him briefly, then go distant again. He ripped the man's shirt away from his chest, exposing the silver tube of pills he'd hoped would be there, hanging from a stainless steel chain. He unscrewed the cap and dumped the contents in one palm, then slapped the man a little harder, trying to get him to respond.
"Mitzhy..." Albert gasped loosely, reaching for his left shoulder.
"Stay with me, Al. I need you to swallow these pills. I think you're having a heart attack."
"Mitzhy?"
Crandall had placed his body between himself and the corpse so he wouldn't have to look at it any more than necessary, but he was blocking Al's view, and that seemed to be a good thing just then. "She's okay, Al. She went to call the doctor. Can you swallow these?"
The man, going pale, glanced toward the other man's palm and nodded minutely, still slowly slumping to the floor. Crandall fed him the pills, then snatched the bedspread off the bed and draped him in it, tugging him down so he'd lay flat, pulling his feet around toward the door just enough to make turning to see the fresh body in the room that much more difficult. He wanted to jump up and immediately start investigating, trying to catch the killer while he or she was still on the premises, but Croom was a possible witness and it was vital he remain alive. A glance around the room from where he stood gave up no immediate clues, and then he jolted, wired with adrenaline, at the sound of a distant, tinny voice.
He bent to retrieve his dropped cellphone and remembered he'd dialed the emergency number. Schultz paused to take a deep breath before speaking to the baffled operator, identifying himself before requesting police backup, an ambulance, and the coroner.
"We don't normally deal with the coroner, Detective Schultz," replied the voice.
"I know you can get hold of him. Just do it for me. Dennis Vodoureaux. Tell him I said there's been another one."
Croom moved slowly, eyelids fluttering as his attention wavered. He reached weakly, which Schultz found intriguing. The man, in his delirious state, was more concerned for his wife than protecting himself. There were no scuff marks on the wooden floorboard to indicate a struggle. Nothing seemed out of place. He wadded part of the loose bedspread behind the man's head for comfort. Al Croom had no visible bruising or scratches to indicate an attacker. Despite the rawness of the body, no blood was splattered anywhere.
Schultz swallowed and finally stared at the corpse. To his horror, he noted regular movement and realized that the freshly exposed heart was still beating. As he continued staring, feeling the odd sensation of drawing back and away from his own body, the corpse actually convulsed once, the dying, detached musculature finally relaxing as it expired slowly.
* * *
There'd been a serious time lapse. Suddenly, the room seemed full of people and noise like they'd just faded into existence around him out of nowhere. Like ghosts re-enacting some long distant scenario. And two of them were talking to him, tugging at him gently, pulling at his light jacket. "Can you tell me your name?"
He'd seen the paramedic before. "Josh...hey, Josh."
Joshua Duddlebach smiled worriedly and nodded. "Yeah, it's me, Crandall. How ya doin'?"
Schultz shook his head, felt his balance go off, straightened up and shook his head again more slowly. "I'm okay."
"We're going to take your blood pressure and check your oxygen level and blood sugar-"
He jerked away irritably. "I'm okay!"
"Before you leave," the paramedic said gravely, and the detective just glared at him before focusing on Faldourette.
"Where the hell have you been?"
The man chuckled, "That's what I was going to ask you."
Schultz noticed something in his hand. "What's that? Where'd you find it?"
The uniformed cop's face fell like he'd been caught stealing cookies. He looked down into his cupped hand at brightly colored fibers. Schultz reached suddenly and tipped the man's palm toward him. In it was something like a crude handmade doll. "I got it from Ti-ti," he said softly.
"You got it...Ti-ti? Ti-ti who?" He lifted the object free of the other man's fingers and held it distastefully between forefinger and thumb. It was ragged and dirty looking.
"It protects me."
"What?"
The paramedics were lifting the stretcher Al Croom lay on so that the wheels beneath it would pop into place and they could transport him out of the room. The one walking backward bumped Faldourette, who stepped aside so they could pass between them. He looked stricken at the ratty doll in his superior's hand.
Schultz gripped it in his fist and shook it as he closed in after the medics had exited. "What the hell is this?"
The cop replied, "Hey--you carry oils in your pocket!"
He paused until he realized what the younger man was referring to. "That's just orange oil. Latanya used to clean with it. It masks smells. What do...what do you think it is?"
Faldourette shook his head slightly, eyes wide. "She, she gets it from Ti-ti."
"Your ex-wife?" a new voice asked. They turned to see Denny and his assistant stepping over the threshhold. "Latanya?" asked the coroner.
"You know Ti-ti?" he asked Faldourette, opening his hand to see the item in it again. It had simple face, very large round head, nothing resembling hair or clothes. There was a stiffness to it beneath the wound, colored cloth, but the joints felt much loser. "How do you know Ti-ti?"
"Eye In The Sky."
"Wha...." He'd heard that before. Seen it somewhere. He thought of the floating eye over a pyramid design on American currency. There was a shop with that name...a little run-down looking building on one of the south roads maybe three or four miles out of town. "What?"
"It's that spiritual supply store on the south end of town," chirped Zara, trying not to look at the body Denny was happily kneeling beside.
"Yes, but...what do you go there for?"
"For that," Faldourette replied, mystified. "It...it's Ti-ti's shop."
Crandall blinked, totally confused. His ex sister-in-law, Tishawna, cleaned businesses at night. He wasn't aware that she had any other jobs. "Then what the hell is this?"
"She made it for me. I went to her and she asked me about my dreams and what I was afraid of and needed most in my life, and then she made this based on all that and she gave it to me."
He shook the thing again. "This? This is what she gave you?"
"Well, no. I mean, I paid her for it."
Schultz opened his fist for another look. It looked like it had been made of old rags or scrap fabric from Latanya's sewing basket. "What...did you pay for this?"
Faldourette shrugged. "I dunno...fifty dollars and-"
"Fifty dollars?!!" Schultz started laughing.
The cop nodded.
"And?"
"And?"
"You said fifty dollars and. And what?"
Now he was starting to turn red. "And...a pint of graveyard dirt and a piece of gold-laced quartz I used to have."
Schultz turned and looked at Denny. The coroner was taking pictures of the body. "You got the graveyard dirt at midnight?"
Zara turned on him unexpectedly. "Not everyone shares the same beliefs, Detective."
Surprised, he let it go, but pocketed the little doll.
"What happened?" asked Denny.
Schultz shrugged. "I think Croom had a heart attack."
Faldourette nodded solemnly and added, "Holland was downstairs at the breakfast buffet."
The detective winced.
"No. What happened here?" the coroner tried again.
"I came up the stairs and she was...she was already like this."
"It happened fast," supplied Faldourette. "They'd just come up in the elevator."
The coroner glanced form person to person in the room. "And she was alive in the elevator?"
"As far as everyone knows. Woman at the reception desk downstairs woulda been the last to see her."
Officer Sarcopski hesitated in the doorway. "You want us in here yet?"
Schultz waved him off. "You didn't see anyone?" he asked Faldourette.
"Ran around the building. Didn't see anything. No one saw anybody leave. Told everybody to stay put and let me know if they saw anyone trying to get out. Backup showed up and we secured the building. I've got four men questioning everybody inside and three of us were using house keys to search all the rooms."
"This one looks just like the last one. You think it's Mitzi Croom?" Vodoureaux looked around his feet and at the surrounding area. "No blood spatters.... Even if she was standing and she fell, this would have splattered."
Schultz had no explanation. Was Denny suggesting the woman had been fine one second, the next suddenly neatly on the floor inside-out? The sensation of distance was lingering peripherally. He reached to scratch his cheek and now the stubble was beginning to feel velvety when stroked in one direction. Without explanation, he turned and strolled out of the room, passing Sarcopski, who caught up with him.
"Just like the kid?"
Schultz kept walking.
"The girl downstairs saw her like two minutes before you did."
Not possible, thought the detective, refraining from saying it aloud.
"Sir...?"
He entered the stairwell and began descending, feeling like he was spiraling into another, darker dimension. He was on the last flight when his cell rang and he flipped it open angrily and turned it off.
Uniformed and plainclothes cops mingled with whining patrons and nervous hotel employees. Bucky Brunwold waved to him urgently as he passed by the dining room entryway, but he ignored the kid and kept going. His abrupt appearance beyond the front doors startled two cops posted there as guards. One called to him, but he kept on moving, irritatedly recalling he had parked his vehicle out back. In his pocket was Faldourette's rag doll. He gripped it like he wanted to crush it as he stalked single-mindedly around the block and up the alley where his unmarked Ford waited.
* * *
Afraid it might've been the chief who'd called, Schultz dug guiltily for his cell phone and waited for it to stop advertising the company he'd acquired it from as he turned it back on. He was backing through the alley, cautiously avoiding the parked cars of other cops when he glanced at the screen and saw he'd missed a call from Latanya. Hitting the brakes, he speed dialed her and waited for her to come on the line.
"Crandall?"
"You didn't leave a message. Is it important?"
A pause. He could hear her breathing. "Is Ellie with you?"
A chill swept through him and he shuddered. The tone of his voice changed. "Why? What's going on? Isn't she in school?"
"I just came from there. They called me this morning when she missed role call. Thought she might be sick. I saw her leave this morning, Crandall. She got on that bus."
"I'm coming over. Don't call anyone just yet. You haven't, have you?"
"Just her friends' parents and my brother. No one's seen her." There was a long silence, then, "She told me you brought her to see a friend of hers from school. Do you think she went to the hospital to see her?"
"Call the hospital. I'll be there as soon as I can." He hung up. He'd wanted to drive over to Eye In The Sky to not only confront his wife's sister, but also to ask if anyone knew anything about the alleged hauntings at Croom's hotel. His daughter's well-being came first, however. Once he knew where she was, he could try concentrating on the case again.
The phone rang. It was Chief Holland. Crandall pressed the button that completely shut his phone off.
* * *
The marked cruiser in front of his ex-wife's house infuriated him. He noticed the curtains being shifted from within as he decided whether to park or just drive off. Angelwiet burst from the front door and trotted toward his vehicle. He put it in park and sat there momentarily, waiting for the raw edges of his rage to subside. The little creep rapped his knuckles on the glass like he was pulling the senior cop over. Crandall jerked the door release and practically flung himself out of the still-running vehicle into the younger man's immediate airspace. "Nobody called you."
"Chief Holland told me to start looking for you here."
Jaw clenched, the detective slammed his right fist against the top of the car and kept his gaze averted. Latanya occupied a formerly nice neighborhood now beginning to slump into more of a slum. There was a small park not far from where he stood, and he stared over at the cheesy plastic playground equipment and the muddy man-made pond with a newspaper vending bin sticking crookedly up out of the middle of it. "My daughter's missing," he grumbled.
"He wants to know what you saw...I mean, did you really see anything? Were you an actual witness?"
The kid was probing for a good story to tell his buddies later. Schultz didn't have one yet. "Has Latanya heard anything out of our daughter?"
"No, but until she's been gone more than 48 hours, all we can do is a welfare check."
"No shit," grunted Schultz. "I need to know where she is, though."
"She's a kid, give her-"
They were interrupted when Latanya rushed out of the house, loudly calling for Crandall. "Nobody's seen her!"
He said, "Call Eye In The Sky."
The large woman stopped where she was and fixed him with a strange stare. "Call what?"
"That place your sister runs. The occult shop or whatever it is."
"Tit-ti doesn't run it-"
"Call there and ask her if she's seen our God-damn daughter!" He was angry at himself for yelling at her, but Angelwiet's presence was like a monkey wrench in his plans. "Chief said check here, huh?"
The younger man nodded owlishly, drawing a small can of mint-flavored tobacco from his breast pocket. "You can't just walk out on the scene of a crime like that-"
"Oh, thank you for updating me on this important police procedure, Officer."
Angelwiet inserted chew between his lower lip and gums and worked the mentholated mulch, saturating it with spit and sucking it back off again. "He says you're to report back to the hotel immediately."
"I got a lead."
"Really?" Billy waited for the older man to elaborate, then spat. "Wanna tell me about it?"
"Ever seen one of these?" Crandall asked him, shoving the little rag doll suddenly in his face.
The uniformed officer choked a little and a few soggy bits of chew now freckled his lower lip and chin. "What the hell? Izzat a clue?"
"Could be. I think it's a voodoo doll."
"From, from Eye In The Sky?"
Crandall enjoyed working out his frustration by tormenting the other man. He kept backing the kid up by advancing step by step with the mummy-wrapped object in his hand. "Uh-huh. That occult shop. South side of town."
"But-but y-you just said y-your daughter might be-"
Lantanya stepped down the front walkway with the phone still pressed to her ear. "Ti-ti's not there, either."
"Call her cell. I wanna talk to her."
Latanya made a face, hung up, and dialed her sister's number. "What's that you got in your hand?"
"Trash from the sidewalk."
Angelwiet cut his eyes toward Crandall's ex, then back at the man again. "Where'd you find that?"
"Faldourette found it. Showed it to me at the hotel."
He reached for it. "What is it--really?"
The detective wrapped his fist around it and pocketed it again. "I'll let you know when I find out for sure."
Latanya approached to say, "She don't know where Ellie, is neither. Why did you think she would know?"
He reached for the phone and his ex handed it to him reluctantly. "Hello, Ti-ti."
"What makes you think I'd have any idea where Elliesha is?"
"When did you start working at Eye In The Sky?"
"When I opened the place with my own hard-earned money."
"And, what, exactly do you do there?"
She hesitated. "I know the sound of a cop when I hear one. You wanna come see what I do for a living? You go and get yourself a nice little warrant."
"Family can't just waltz right in and pick up a voodoo doll custom made to order?"
He could hear breathing on the other end of the line. Finally, the woman replied, "Ain't no voodoo here," and she hung up. He held the phone away from his head and gazed at it, wondering if the display could show him the number Tishawna was at.
His ex lifted the phone from his fingers before he could find out and said, "Now what's all this about? You think Ti-ti's got something to do with Ellie's not bein' in school today?"
He showed her the doll. "What's this all about?"
"How should I know?"
"Your sister got fifty dollars and a handful of graveyard dirt for it."
The woman smirked. "She must be a pretty damn good salesperson."
Crandall's eyes closed as he inhaled deeply of the slightly humid, cool air. "Do you know what this is?"
"It looks like a little voodoo doll. But, you know we don't do anything like that in our family."
"Is it an Ute thing?" he asked her.
She paused, studying the crudely worked image. "I don't know...maybe. Could be. I have no idea." Her features soured and she wailed, "What does this little ragamuffin got to do with our daughter?"
He shook his head. Angelwiet spat brownish liquid near his feet. He looked up and glared at the kid. Angelwiet swallowed self-consciously, then turned away, coughing. "I don't need Ellie caught up in any metaphysical hogwash."
"You mean Indian stuff?" his ex blurted indignantly.
"Is that what this is?"
She looked up at the object he clutched in his fist and admitted, "I have no idea. I told you that. What's going on, Crandall? Where did you get that thing?"
He told Billy, "I want a welfare check issued on Elliesha Wanda Schultz. Get her picture distributed and have everyone keep an eye out for her. I want to be notified the moment she's spotted by anyone." The cop nodded and ducked into his cruiser to work the portable computer within it. He told Latanya, "You see Ti-ti, you call me immediately. I want to talk to her."
Latanya latched onto his arm before he could pull away. "What's going on, Crandall? Could she be in trouble? Do you have any idea what's going on? Is there something you're not telling me?"
He shook her off and muttered, "I have no idea what's going on here, but it's pretty damn fishy, and I don't need to know my daughter's missing right now. I don't need stress like this. Not now. You find her, you punish her--make her stay in her room. I don't need her wandering around without us knowing where she is and there's some crazed serial killer loose in this town."
Latanya's hands flew to her face and even Angelwiet poked his head out of the squad car.
Schultz grumbled, "I didn't mean that! I don't know that for a fact! There's gotta be three murders minumum to qualify for a serial killer, and we don't know that yet!"
"Is there a serial killer?" the woman wondered, worriedly clutching at her former husband again. "Is there a lunatic goin' around and killin'-"
"No! No! Now stop it!" he shouted, backing away from her in agitation. "I'm sorry. Look, honey, I'm sorry I yelled at you. No. There's nobody going around killing anybody. I'm sure Ellie's safe somewhere and when she turns up, I'm gonna beat her ass indigo."
"But, you said-"
He'd noticed that her neighbors to the north had come out into their front yard to pretend to do a little weeding. "A kid died yesterday, you know that. We don't know what killed him. I just...I just came from another scene...it may not be the same thing."
"Who, Crandall? Who's died now?" she pleaded.
"Not now, Latanya. I'll fill you in later. When you see Elliesha, you keep her home. Make her stay in the house with you. I'm sure she's alright. I just don't need this shit right now."
Angelwiet piped up helpfully, "Three murders and the feds get involved."
He turned to glare at the kid. Having to hand the case over to the federal authorities was the last thing he wanted to do. "There haven't been three murders. There haven't even been two...Denny said it looks more like, like some kind of weird accident or something-"
"Denny?"
He replied to her, "The coroner, dear. It doesn't look like anything anybody could have done to anybody else. It's got to be an accident of some kind-"
Latanya started backing away from him. "You were never any good at lying."
"I'm a great liar," he countered, lifting his plams near his sides.
"Not to me you weren't," she continued, softly. "There's a murderer on the loose and my baby is missing and all you wanna do is play with dolls." She turned and stormed away from him, back into the house.
Angelwiet noted, "I think she's overreacting a little bit."
Crandall took a big step toward the cruiser and began to push the door shut while the uniformed cop tried to duck back within quickly. He managed to catch the kid's fingers painfully, but didn't close the door completely on them. "Oh, sorry," he muttered, letting Angelwiet snatch his hands away and examine them. "Fuck," he said to the world at large, frustrated and confused and terrified for his little girl's safety.
Is the legend of the Indian Chief a real-life ghost story? How many more must die before Schultz finds out? Does his sister-in-law, Tishawna, have anything to do with the mysterious killings? And will Elliesha turn up dead or alive? Stay tuned for Part Four of E.D. Detetcheverrie's horror/thriller Indian Chief.
